WOMEN on the Atkins diet or sportswomen on a high-protein diet might want to consider changing their eating habits if they are trying to conceive. Animal studies suggest protein-rich diets lower fertility. Whether human fertility is affected by a protein-rich diet has to be proved, says David Gardner of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine in Englewood, who led the study. “But to err on the side of caution, I would suggest women who want to conceive get off a high-protein diet,” he says.
Eating protein-rich food increases the levels of a metabolic by-product, ammonium, in the reproductive tract of female mice and cows, and ammonium is known to slow the development of mouse embryos. So Gardner and his colleagues wondered if high levels of the compound would affect normal reproduction.
They fed female mice either a normal diet of 14 per cent protein, or 25 per cent protein, for four weeks before mating. Embryos from females on the high-protein diet implanted only 65 per cent of the time, versus 81 per cent for the normal diet. And only 84 per cent of the high-protein embryos developed beyond 15 days, compared with 99 per cent of the normal embryos.
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However, Jeff Volek from the University of Connecticut at Storrs says ammonium levels in blood do not seem to increase in people on the Atkins diet, so levels in the female reproductive tract may not increase either. Gardner says this is reassuring for those on the diet, but points out the effect of eating more than the recommended level of protein on ammonium levels is not known.
